Brian Townsend admits breaking Full Tilt rules

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Brian Hastings’s $4m win over Isildur1 has had a shadow cast over it after the CardRunners instructor admitted sharing information with Cole South and Brian Townsend, fellow Full Tilt pros and CardRunners icons.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Hastings said that he, South and Townsend had “done quite a bit of studying of [Isildur1’s] habits. Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker. He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots."

However, this sharing of 20,000 hand histories directly conflicts Full Tilt Poker’s terms and conditions, which state that: “shared hand history databases and “data mining” software, including subscription services and the exchange of personal databases: The use of shared hand histories provides detailed information on opponents a player has little or no personal experience playing against, and is deemed to be an unfair advantage. Violating this policy is subject to the maximum penalties for prohibited software use."

Townsend was previously suspended as a red pro for multi-accounting. He has been banned for one month and Isildur1 is, according to PokerNews.com, considering filing a formal complaint.

Tuesday is the deadline for all working Americans to have submitted their income tax returns to the federal government and Juicy Stakes and Intertops Poker are set to mark this annual occasion by holding a special freeroll competition featuring a $1,000 top prize.

“We run a lot of higher stakes tournaments for our more hard-core players,” said Intertops’ poker manager. “But since our network is generally pretty soft, we created this series to give less competitive players a shot at winning.”